


Wisdom, Justice, Moderation

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Contact spoilers, Contactverse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: William can’t imagine twenty-three years, let alone knowing someone for that long.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please read "Contact" first, otherwise this won't make much sense.

William pads down the hallway in sweatpants too long for his legs. They’re old and threadbare, a dark flannel pattern that’s begun to fade into itself. Hopefully Mulder has a pair of socks he can borrow; his toes curl against the rounded edges of the steps as he makes his way downstairs. 

He goes to the kitchen first, smelling something. A baking sheet of cookies lays out on the island, all roughly the same size. A few have been picked away from the edge of the sheet. Will pops his head into Mulder’s office, where Keegan sits at the computer, scrolling through security camera feeds. In the corner, Caroline is curled up in the armchair on her laptop. She wears a pair of glasses Will hasn’t seen before. 

“Did you guys make those cookies?” he asks. 

“Yeah, go ahead,” Keegan says through a mouthful, not looking up. 

“You all packed?” Caroline asks, shutting down her computer and storing it in her bag. 

Will nods. “Wasn’t much to pack, but yeah. Have you guys seen--um.”

“Front porch,” Keegan says, inclining his head.

William thanks them and continues down the hallway, working the long legs of the pajama pants down under his feet so he can slide along the hardwood. He hears their voices coming from further down the hall and follows them to the front of the house, where they sit outside on the porch. The front door is open but the screen door is closed, letting a nice breeze in down the hallway. Will shivers.

“So what’ll you do now?” he hears Mulder ask. 

“Hm?” Scully’s voice sounds heavy, like she’s just woken up from sleeping. 

“You’ve gotten a taste of the good old days again, think you can go back to boring old medicine?”

“Mulder.” William likes that they call each other by their last names. He wants to join them outside but something stalls his movements, makes him stay in the doorway and listen. He scoots to the edge of the doorframe, just able to make out his parents’ profiles in the darkness. 

Mulder sits slumped in a folding chair, a stemless wine glass in his hand. Will’s always thought those things look silly. Past him, Scully is tucked up in her chair, her distinctive profile illuminated in the sliver of moonlight on the porch.

“What, you don’t miss the good old days?” Mulder asks. The chair squeaks beneath him as he shifts his weight. 

“That’s just it, they’re old. Passed. We’re different now,” Scully says.

“Are we?”

“I’d like to think that we are.” Her voice is quiet. “I’m not the buttoned-up girl who walked into your office twenty-three years ago.”

“Is that all?” Mulder asks, reverent. “Only twenty-three years?”

William can’t imagine twenty-three years, let alone knowing someone for that long. 

Scully seems confused as well. “Only?”

“Sometimes it feels like I’ve known you for lifetimes.”

“Mulder.” Will hears the smile in her voice. It’s the same way she sounded when she told Will she was his mother. “You’re sappy when you’re drunk.”

“I’m hardly drunk, I’ve had two glasses of wine, maybe three.”

“Try four.” 

William hears a low clink, the sound of a wine bottle against the metal leg of the folding chair. 

“Is that all?” Mulder asks again. 

Will had beer once, last year at Caleb’s house. Caleb’s older brother had procured it for them, and made them pay him twenty dollars, which seemed like a lot. He’d had one and Caleb had finished the rest. Alcohol isn’t something that his parents--his adoptive parents, whatever--talk about often, but they don’t shy away from it either. Will doesn’t really get what the big deal is. He hadn’t much cared for the beer. 

“Should we take my car or yours to the airport tomorrow?” Mulder asks after a moment. 

There is a long silence. Scully’s chair creaks. Will pulls his arms inside the body of his t-shirt, chilled from standing by the door for so long. He thinks maybe they’ve stopped talking. Right before he turns to go back upstairs and forget about the socks, Scully speaks. 

“I don’t want him to go.” 

Will feels very visible all of a sudden, as if someone had turned on the porch light, illuminating him in the doorway, hanging on his parents’ every word. If he moves now they’ll hear him, certainly. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the house and every sound is amplified. 

“He’ll be back,” Mulder says finally.

“If I hadn’t--” Scully begins, then stops herself. 

Will leans closer, straining to hear. Scully speaks so softly sometimes he’s afraid he’ll miss it. He wants to hear everything she has to say. 

“Hey Will.” A voice from the other end of the hallway makes Will jump. Keegan, his bag slung over his shoulder, gestures back into Mulder’s office. “There’s a pair of slippers in there if you’re cold, man.” 

“Oh. Uh, thanks!” Will manages, heart pounding. Had it been obvious that he was eavesdropping? 

“See you soon,” Keegan says. He waves, headed towards the back door. 

His cover blown, Will shuffles back down the hallway to Mulder’s office, where he spies the pair of slippers under the desk chair. He slides into them, immediately grateful. They’re much too big for him. He bounces for a moment in the ergonomic chair, swaying back and forth, taking stock of the photos and clippings pinned to the corkboard behind Mulder’s computer. Brown Mountain Couple Missing for Weeks, one headline reads. There are a few ads pasted together on a sheet of computer paper, some from newspapers and others from online. In one corner is a faded picture of a woman in a rowboat wearing a blue bikini; Will makes a face and quickly averts his eyes when he realizes it’s Scully. 

He rises and is drawn again to the bookshelf, running his fingers across pebbled spines of books with titles like Epidemiology in Central America and Yosemite OS For Dummies. Just out of reach on a high shelf is the folder with his name on it. The folder he’d pulled out on the first night and thought of every night since. William reaches up now, straining the soft woven fabric of his slippers. He takes the manila envelope to the desk. It is heavy with the weight of the past. 

William opens the clasp and pulls out everything at once. His birth certificate is on top, the edges dog-eared but the ink clear. The place of birth is listed as somewhere in Georgia, which surprises him. Scully hadn’t mentioned that when she’d explained everything to him. Beneath his birth certificate is another form, all his fingerprints and two tiny feet in black ink. It’s hard to believe he was ever that small. 

Next is a picture, an old 3x5. He grins when he realizes that it’s a poorly executed selfie. Mulder had taken it, his arm occupying half of the frame in front of a goofy grin. He looks so much younger, Will thinks. Beside him, Scully wears a sweater, tired but beaming. Her hair is shorter and redder. And there in her arms, William realizes, squinting, is him. He’s wrapped tightly in a couple different blankets, his upturned face looking at something beyond the camera. 

William studies it for a moment longer, then takes a clear pushpin from Mulder’s corkboard and pins it up in the center, just above the computer monitor. He closes the envelope back up and replaces it on the bookshelf, then shuffles upstairs in Mulder’s slippers, tripping over his feet the last few steps.


End file.
